Transportation

“The prenatal trip assistance study will address Columbus’s high infant mortality rates by connecting pregnant women without reliable transportation to dependable, timely and safe rides to doctors’ appointments and pharmacies.”

Many states in the U.S. have enacted regulations on TNC operations. The map on this website summarizes legislation for each state, and has city regulations listed for cities in Texas.

A blog run by a long-time rideshare driver includes resources on what it's like to drive for various rideshare and delivery companies, and how to maximize profits and manage finances as a driver. The author also published a book, The Rideshare Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Companies, in 2018.

This article details requirements and qualifications for driving for Uber of Lyft. It also discusses the earning potential for each company, and compares driver satisfaction between the two companies.

Automation of personal and transit vehicles will change the vehicles themselves, but also the right-of-way that governs their use. These changes bring an opportunity to improve transit systems. High capacity transit must become a more attractive mode of transit in order to remain competitive with personal and shared vehicles.

MaaS Global aims to revolutionize mobility by offering an alternative to owning a car through an app. The app lets customers find the best option of transportation for every trip.

TAP is a payment card that works with 25 multimodal transit systems within LA County.

Portland announced an expansion of its Transportation wallet, now offering the pass to people who live or work in the NW parking district. The pass is intended to encourage walking, taking transit, and bicycling, and to address parking demand and congestion in dense areas of Portland.

Cities around the world are beginning to prioritize people over vehicles by closing major streets to traffic and opening them up to pedestrians, cyclists, public transit.

Online shopping is making congestion worse by adding endless delivery trucks to cities that are not designed to handle the rising number of daily deliveries.

Persistent demand for trucks and SUVs has caused prices to rise while Tesla’s price reductions have caused electric vehicles to become less expensive.

According to the U.S. Census, the average American spends about 26 minutes commuting each direction to work.

Electric vehicles only make up a small percentage of the U.S.’s car fleet, however they are becoming more affordable.

This paper provides a review of recent studies of rail transit's impact on property values and discusses the types of impacts rail transit can have on properties. It also outlines the reasons for contradictions between results of different studies.

The City of Summit, New Jersey partnered with Lyft to reduce commuter need for parking within the city. This partnership expands on a previous partnership with Uber, extending the program for one year. The goal of the partnership is to provide greater flexibility for residents and reduce municipal lot congestion.

This report examines several scenarios of connected and automated vehicle (CAV) adoption rates and studies their potential impacts on fuel efficiency and consumer costs. The results found massive uncertainties in potential long-term energy impacts from fully automated and highly connected vehicles in the high adoption rate scenario and similar uncertainties in the other scenarios. The authors outline the gaps in existing research and suggest routes for further research in order of importance.

TNCs provide on-demand mobility service that either complements or competes with transit services. This article studies how TNCs influence changes in urban travel patterns as well as energy and environmental implications.

This report outlines examples of integrated mobility initiatives that can help guide transit agencies in determining ways to move toward more integrated mobility.

Recent research on autonomous vehicles (AV) has shown a substantive dive into the technical aspects of AVs, but our understanding of the secondary effects of AVs is minimal in comparison (Glancy, 2015; Mitteregger, Soteropoulos, Bröthaler, & Dorner, 2019; Terry & Bachmann, 2019). This article offers a look at how automation of one of the cornerstones of many municipal government—solid waste collection—could be altered with the advent of AVs.

The growth of ride-hailing services has led to more traffic and less transit use in the United States, contrary to predictions that suggested the opposite would happen when transportation network companies first started becoming popular. Some data shows that household vehicle ownership increased in cities where Uber and Lyft are most heavily used, while there is also a growing number of urban households that own zero or few cars. The article analyzes this data to determine whether Americans own fewer cars, and discusses how vehicle ownership relates to population growth in several cities.

The development of automated vehicles is moving into the deployment phase. Automation is being tested in vehicles as well as buses, trains, trucks, and tractors. Some initial deployment could occur in Oregon in the form of pilot programs for a low-speed passenger shuttle and a truck-mounted attenuator. This guide focuses on potential impacts for the next five to fifteen years and discusses policy implications for each use case of automated vehicles.

Self-driving cars will be first available to robotaxi-fleet operators, not private owners. This availability restriction comes from the expensive nature of LIDAR sensors that make the sensors themselves more expensive than the rest of the vehicle. The safety and reliability of automated vehicles also impacts their ability to be privately owned, at least at first. Safe and reliable vehicle operation is easier to achieve when the vehicles operate within a geographic range that has been mapped in detail, meaning automated vehicles will mainly operate in city centers in their early stages of adoption. These considerations driving automated vehicles toward fleet ownership will have impacts on many areas of the automotive industry.

This article discusses an experiment conducted to investigate the factors contributing to travel mode choice. The experiment found that subjects were more inclined to chose cars over other forms of transportation, even when another form of transportation might have been more ideal based on cost or travel time. This demonstrates the concept of car stickiness, where travelers are heavily biased towards traveling in cars over other forms of transportation.

INRIX created a global traffic scorecard that analyzes congestion and mobility trends in 200 cities, across 38 countries. They created a cross-national ranking and analysis that provides insights for drivers and policymakers to help them make decisions based on big data.

Despite national averages of shrinking transit ridership, seven United States cities have seen increased ridership. These cities have seen growth because of their efforts to improve or expand their bus services.

Existing studies do not distinguish between connected and autonomous vehicles while examining their effects of the driving environment. This article conducts studies with distinguished vehicle types to establish a framework of several adoption scenarios to analyze the stability of the resulting traffic stream. The results demonstrated the ability of connected and autonomous vehicles to improve string stability. The study also found that automation was more effective at preventing shockwave formation and propagation. Under certain model scenarios, potential throughput also increased.

GM's Cruise is working towards making an efficient, safe, and affordable new transportation mode. Self-described as "what you'd build if there were no cars," Cruise creates an experience geared towards the rider.

Ford will have a fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation by 2021. Ford's vehicle will not have a steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, and will operate within geo-fenced areas as part of a ride sharing or ride hailing program.

Shared micromobility, which includes shared bikes, e-bikes and scooters, is becoming more popular in the US.

This paper surveys emerging mobility services in order to highlight the key points of the concept of “mobility as a service” and to develop an index that evaluates the level of mobility integration of each service.

This article studies how emerging “smart mobility” systems will affect equity issues in Portland, Oregon. It suggests that affordable and improved public transit, ridesharing and active transportation could address many transportation challenges.

Cadillac Super Cruise provides hands free driving for select highway commutes. Drivers must remain attentive to the road and must maintain a WiFi Hotspot, a working electrical system, cell reception, GPS signal, and an active OnStar plan.

Autonomous vehicles are on their way to becoming the next leap in technological advancement. Sensor technology, computing capacity, and artificial intelligence are some of the main technologies that need major development to make autonomous vehicles feasible to adopt on a large scale.

A website for the European Commission’s New Mobility Services (NMS) initiative

A website detailing the capabilities of Tesla's semi-autonomous vehicles.

Two fatalities involving autonomous vehicles (AVs) have raised the prominence of safety concerns within AV testing. Many states have considered or enacted regulations on AV testing, while availability of data collected on testing remains difficult to access.

This report develops a framework for measuring safety in automated vehicles. It ranges in considerations from measuring safety in artificial development phases to deployment phases.

This report discusses the statistical findings on fatal crashes due to distracted driving in 2017. The report relays data on different age groups and discusses types of distraction, such as cell phone usage.

Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar and cofounder of NUMO, discusses the misconceptions around Mobility as a Service and its potentials for public benefit.

“Fehr & Peers was engaged by Lyft and Uber to determine their combined Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in six metropolitan regions in September 2018 and compare that value to approximate total VMT in each area for the same period.”

The report is intended to provide guidance to Australia and New Zealand in planning road changes for the introduction of automated vehicles. Key issues that are discussed in this report include physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and road operations. The analysis of each issue includes different possible use cases of automated vehicles and includes discussion of optimal conditions required to support the introduction of automated vehicles.

This resource provides an overview of what technologies connected and automated include and some of the impacts they will have on safety and other transportation issues.

Ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft are changing how travelers get to the airport. This trend is negatively affecting airports, which depend on parking, rental car, and taxi fees as a primary source of revenue.

“This research aimed to look at the future of mobility and MaaS from a perspective of society, to look not only at the challenges to enabling a MaaS ecosystem but the potential direct and indirect effects on the wider transport system and city.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration outlines the progression of automated vehicle technology and the ways it will improve safety. The NHTSA released safety guidelines for industry, states, and policymakers in 2017 (Automated Driving Systems: A Vision for Safety), and an expanded set of guidelines in 2018 (Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0). Both documents are linked in the NHTSA in Action section at the end of this report.

“The purpose of this paper is to develop a topological approach to characterizing the MaaS concept in order to: 1) facilitate more meaningful discussions of the MaaS concept, 2) enable the ‘comparison of’ different services, 3) understand MaaS’ requirements and effects in terms of society, business, users/ customers, and technology, and 4) aid in the integration of societal goals.”

NACTO studied the data from all available sources about docked and dockless bike share systems. They found that docked bike share systems show steady growth, while dockless bike share systems are more volatile.

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) created a press release discussing several guidelines for policymakers regarding regulations for micromobility.

As people are relying more on ride-hailing services instead of driving themselves, cities are seeing a reduction in parking demand.

“New York City will be the first city in the US to charge motorists extra to enter the busiest areas, after the state agreed to a congestion pricing plan as part of its fiscal year 2020 budget.”

“Taking Uber or Lyft to and from work and to run errands might seem more expensive than driving yourself–but in many cases, relying on a ride-hailing service is cheaper than buying and using a car of your own. A new calculator compares both scenarios, and might help you decide to ditch car ownership entirely.”

In New York City, conflict has erupted between private ride-hailing services and neutral third-party mobility platforms battling for bikeshare access. Companies like Lyft and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) providers such as Transit both want to remove the friction of switching in between modes for commuters, however the ride-sharing companies want to build brand loyalty while third-party MaaS platforms want to offer access to all mobility options available.

The NUMO New Mobility Atlas visualizes the rapid proliferation of new mobility, including micromobility, around the world. Developed in partnership with Populus, Grin and MaaS Latam, the Atlas uses open data to track which shared transportation options—currently dockless scooters, bicycles and mopeds—are available in cities.

This is a fact sheet suitable for use as a printed handout on Urbanism Next's topline research findings regarding micromobility.

This is a fact sheet suitable for use as a printed handout on Urbanism Next's topline research findings regarding TNCs.

Sustainable, inclusive, prosperous, and resilient cities depend on transportation that facilitates the safe, efficient, and pollution-free flow of people and goods, while also providing affordable, healthy, and integrated mobility for all people. The pace of technology-driven innovation from the private sector in shared transportation services, vehicles, and networks is rapid, accelerating, and filled with opportunity. At the same time, city streets are a finite and scarce resource.These principles, produced by a working group of international NGOs, are designed to guide urban decision-makers and stakeholders toward the best outcomes for all.

This framework provides an overview of the work Urbanism Next does and how we approach our research.

The purpose of this report is to analyze potential impacts and offer recommendations for the cities of Gresham and Eugene, OR, to understand the potential impacts of new mobility technologies – with an emphasis on autonomous vehicles (AVs) – and prepare a policy and programmatic response. While Gresham and Eugene are case studies, it provides mid-sized communities information on how new mobility services could impact their communities and what they can do about it, from broad strategies to specific policy responses. While this work focuses on the various new mobility and goods delivery services that currently exist, the framework that is discussed here is also applicable to emerging technologies that haven’t yet been introduced, such as autonomous vehicles (AVs).

This report summarizes the major assumptions, predictions and forecasts that have been made for autonomous vehicles. It emphasizes their impact and takes focus on the effects it will have on previously immobile people and what it will take to integrate them legislatively.

"Private Transit: Existing Services and Emerging Directions provides an overview and taxonomy of private transit services in the United States, reviews their present scope and operating characteristics, presents three case studies, and discusses ways private transit services may affect the communities in which they operate. This report is intended to help inform public transit agencies, local governments, potential service operators and sponsors, and other stakeholders about private transit services and ways these services address transportation needs in a variety of operating environments."

"Private Mobility, Public Interest is a report for public-sector leaders committed to making it easy for their citizens to get where they want to go. We identify actionable short-term opportunities for today’s transit agencies and municipalities to work with emerging mobility providers. This report is an independent analysis built on a foundation of more than 100 interviews with industry representatives from the public and private sectors."

The goal of this white paper is to consider the impact of AVs on municipal budgets. AVs create a “potential rat’s nest of a budgeting challenge.” This paper seeks to begin the process of untangling that rat’s nest, and provide the foundation for future phases of the project that will consider potential additional revenue sources to fund the infrastructure changes that may come from the integration of AVs as well as land use planning implications.

The University of Oregon conducted research for the cities of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver to understand how the deployment of autonomous vehicles may impact greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Based on the range of possible outcomes, the cities hope to better understand the policies and programmatic choices available to mitigate negative impacts of AVs and ensure that they can accomplish the goals stated in their climate action, land use, and transportation plans. By working together, each city hopes to learn from each other—as well as cities from across North America—to achieve their climate-related goals.

The transportation sector accounts for the largest portion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to all other sectors, and GHGs are once again on the rise. At the same time, new mobility technologies are being introduced and fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) are anticipated to be deployed, at least to varying extents, within 5-10 years. (Waymo, Google’s self-driving project, is already operating a limited robotaxi service in Phoenix, AZ with a fleet of AVs.) AVs have the potential to improve safety, reduce congestion, and increase mobility— but they could also increase congestion, increase vehicle miles/ kilometers traveled (VMT/VKT), and erode transit, walk, and bike mode share, exacerbating existing conditions. The cities of Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; and Vancouver, BC have adopted climate action plans with the goal of dramatically reducing GHG emissions. This policy brief is intended to help the three cities better understand how AVs may help or hinder them in achieving their goals, and what recommended actions to take at this critical moment in time.

This purpose of this report is to help the cities of Gresham, Oregon and Eugene, Oregon understand the potential impacts of new mobility technologies – with an emphasis on autonomous vehicles (AVs) – and prepare a policy response. While Gresham and Eugene are case studies, it provides communities of all sizes information on how new mobility services could impact their communities and what they can do about it, from broad strategies to specific policy responses. While this work focuses on the various new mobility and goods delivery services that currently exist, the framework that is discussed here is also applicable to emerging technologies that haven’t yet been introduced, such as AVs.

This document contains the permit requirements for Portland's 2018 E-Scooter Pilot Program.

This document outlines all the permit requirements for vendors participating in Portland's 2019 E-Scooter Pilot. This set of requirements is largely based on the 2018 E-Scooter Pilot requirements but features more comprehensive requirements related to data sharing and the longevity of the vehicles.

This is the set of permit requirements for vendors to participate in the Chicago Dockless Bikeshare Pilot Program.

This report created by Toole Design and commissioned by the City of Spokane provides analysis of a micromobility pilot launched in 2018. Toole Design considered survey results, field evaluation, and data reports when forming their recommendation for the city.

"This document describes the permit process for the City of Fremont’s Shared Active Transportation pilot program. Shared active transportation (SAT) programs consist of bicycles, electric bicycles, and/or motorized scooters (“SAT vehicles” or “devices”) that are deployed in the public right of way for use by members, subscribers, customers, or the general public. This document describes program terms and conditions, required application contents, and the process and timeline for review of applications. The objective of this permit process is to facilitate the creation of shared active transportation programs and the realization of their potential benefits, while avoiding potential negative impacts of such programs on the health, safety, and welfare of the general public."

The City of Milwaukee's Department of Public Works launched an e-scooter pilot program in 2019. This document outlines the requirements for participation in the pilot as well as the goals for the pilot.

This document contains the City of Milwaukee's "terms and conditions" for participation in their Dockless Bicycle Share Pilot Study. The City introduces goals for their pilot as well as their terms for participation which include insurance requirements, fees, data sharing, and fleet requirements.

The City of Baltimore launched a six-month dockless mobility pilot program on August 15, 2018. After evaluating trip data, community surveys, and injury reports, city planners recommended in this report that the City of Baltimore permanently integrates dockless bicycles and e-scooters into its transportation network.

The City of El Paso, Texas adopted a set of Shared Use Mobility Device Rules and Regulation on May 1, 2019. Included in the rules and regulations document are permit requirements for participating in a pilot program.

Using public survey results and data provided by micromobility vendors, the City of Denver's Public Works Department created this evaluation report roughly six months after the pilot began.

This evaluation report conducted by the Seattle Department of Transportation is one of the most comprehensive and thorough reports of a new mobility pilot program. The report features an in-depth analysis of ridership data, community and user surveys, and the equitable-access requirements.

The City of Charlotte added e-scooters to their Shared Mobility Pilot Program in May 2018. This report focuses on four important aspects of e-scooter implementation (safety and education, infrastructure and parking, operations and permitting, and data sharing and learning) and looks at the current practice and next steps for the City of Charlotte in each category.

"This document provides an evaluation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA’s) Powered Scooter Share Pilot Program (Pilot) at the mid-point of the 12-month pilot period per the August 28, 2019 Pilot Powered Scooter Share Permit Program Policy Directive."

"This document provides an interim evaluation of the SFMTA’s Stationless Bikeshare Pilot Program, approximately 9 months after the start of the 18-month pilot period. The evaluation shows that the JUMP bikeshare system is generally performing well and complies with the terms and conditions set forth by the SFMTA. The evaluation also identifies several potential improvements. Based on this evaluation, the SFMTA recommends expanding the maximum fleet size for JUMP to 500 bikes for the duration of the 18- month pilot period. The SFMTA will complete its full evaluation of the pilot program in spring 2019, including recommendations for if and how to permanently permit the operation of stationless bikeshare in San Francisco."

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) was created as a result of state mandates in 2008 to mitigate climate change in the San Francisco Bay Area. This report evaluates the MTC's Climate Initiatives Program, a program with multiple projects designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by transportation.

This report contains findings from all of the community engagement the City of San Antonio conducted during its six-month Dockless Vehicle Pilot Program which began on October 19, 2018.

These are the permit requirements for the Chicago E-Scooter Share Pilot Program, which ran from June 15, 2019 to October 15, 2019.

Chicago launched their first dockless bikeshare pilot on May 1, 2018. The program ended on November 1, 2018. This report outlines the City's goals for the pilot as well as survey results and trip data collected during the pilot period.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) report provides a preliminary analysis of an E-Scooter Pilot Program conducted in Portland, Oregon, from July 2018 through November of the same year. The report includes ridership data, public perception and concerns, areas for improvement, and proposed next steps for implementing e-scooters in Portland.

Unregulated commuter shuttles in San Francisco created safety and congestion issues while loading and unloading passengers. To directly address these problems, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency created the Commuter Shuttle Pilot Program, a program that enabled eligible commuter shuttles to load and unload passengers at curb zones originally intended for Muni buses. This report evaluates the impacts of the 18-month pilot program which began in January 2014.

This report summarizes the user survey findings during the half-way point of a year-long microtransit pilot project in West Sacramento, California. A final evaluation of the pilot will be published by the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley in 2019.

In partnership with Via, Marin County Transit District (Marin Transit) launched a microtransit pilot program in May 2018. This report created by Marin Transit contains lots of insights into the design and outcome of the pilot project. In particular, the survey results and data analysis in the report is very colorful.

"Researchers at the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at UC Berkeley conducted an evaluation of the RideKC: Bridj pilot program operating in Kansas City, MO. RideKC: Bridj is a public‐private partnership with the goal to enhance existing public transit options in Kansas City through a flexible microtransit service offered by Bridj. TSRC UC Berkeley’s goal in this evaluation is to assess the travel behavior impacts of the service, as well as to provide operational and institutional analysis."

On June 13, 2018 Waymo's early rider program hit the one year mark. This article written by Waymo includes some interesting statistics about how the program and who participated.

The Mcity driverless shuttle began operating on the University of Michigan's campus in June 2018. This report focuses on how the researchers collected data and designed the project in order to achieve the project goals of leaning how people react to riding in the shuttles and a how road users interact with the driverless shuttles.

"In 2017, the City of Arlington contracted with the autonomous shuttle company EasyMile to begin the first self-driving shuttle program open to the public in the United States. From August 2017 to August 2018, the Milo vehicles operated on off-street trails that connect major entertainment venues with remote parking areas. The program’s name represents mile zero - the point at which guest arrive at their destination. Milo operated at over 110 events during the program with a perfect safety record."

In order to ease congestion downtown and relieve pressure on parking during the holiday season, the city of Boulder, Colorado engaged in a partnership with Lyft, Uber, and a taxi company zTrip. The pilot project, which ran for 11 weeks, involved the city subsidizing rides for residents of Boulder who travelled downtown using one of the partnership companies. This report presents the motivation, design, operation, and results of the pilot.

The Go Centennial pilot was the first pilot project in the country where a government or transit agency fully subsidized first and last-mile rides provided by a transportation network company (in this case Lyft). The Go Centennial pilot was launched in Centennial, Colorado on August 2016 and ran for six months until February 2017. This final report is one of the most comprehensive evaluations of a TNC partnership pilot, and details the goals, preexisting conditions, and procurement and design of the pilot. The report concludes with a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the pilot and a set of lessons learned and key takeaways.

This report evaluates the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's "The RIDE" pilot project. The pilot project, which is still in operation today, is an example of a public-private partnership, where the MBTA subsidizes ADA paratransit rides provided by Uber, Lyft, and Curb their traditional ADA paratransit customers. The analysis and modeling in the report is based off of data provided by the MBTA stretching from the pilot's start date in October 2016 through March 2018.

"The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA), in Pinellas County, FL, was the first transit agency in the US to sign a service provision agreement with a transportation network company (TNC) to offer joint first/last-mile service subsidized by public dollars. PSTA’s “Direct Connect” pilot allows riders to get to and from bus stops in a taxi, wheelchair-accessible vehicle (WAV), or Uber TNC vehicle at a subsidized rate. PSTA’s overall experience developing, managing, and adapting the Direct Connect pilot provides insight into what transit agencies can expect when working with on-demand service providers. While operating on a larger scale, in a denser environment, or with a different ridership base may have offered different lessons in implementation, the Direct Connect pilot’s service design shows what is necessary for a successful launch of a pilot program: good data and transparency from all parties, as well as concrete plans for outreach and evaluation."

This report categorizes and summarizes efforts that are already underway in cities across the world to rethink curb management, to outline the key takeaways from the one-day workshop that involved city staff from Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, and to identify major research gaps.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between road infrastructure and safety for both conventional and increasingly-autonomous vehicles as the latter become more common on road networks. Understanding the current situation and looking forward may relieve some of the anxieties described above. The paper provides a framework for considering these issues and works within the structure of the Johari Window.

This article examines the increasingly high demand for same-day and two day delivery and what customers are willing to do to get it.

BMW’s car-sharing service abruptly ceased operation Wednesday, ending a mobility program that included 1,000 free-floating vehicles used by more than 100,000 members across Seattle and Portland.

Bird and Scoot announced that Bird is acquiring Scoot, the San Francisco-based electric vehicle pioneer. The acquisition is a strategic decision from two like-minded companies.